Chapter 20
RAFAELLE
Day Two – Morning
Sunlight floods the terrace.
Olive trees rustle as I set a small table for two.
Late-harvest olives, freshly baked bread, ripe tomatoes sliced and drizzled with sunflower oil. On the burner, a pot of coffee simmers, sending dark aromas through the villa.
Sofiya emerges in one of my cotton shirts. Her hair is braided, pillow-soft, and she’s barefoot. She blinks at the spread, uncertain.
I hand her a steaming cup. ‘Caffè?’
She nods, wrapping both hands around the mug. ‘Grazie.’
We sit where the breeze catches just right, the sea a glazed blue in the distance. I watch her stir sugar into the coffee, though the morning light reveals a thin bruise on her upper arm, a souvenir from last night’s fucking.
She lifts her gaze. ‘I know I shouldn’t ask… but how do you keep the… pain… from consuming you?’
I tap my fingers on the table. ‘You know how,’ I rasp. By slitting throats and squeezing triggers.
‘That only fulfils… sometimes, doesn’t it?’
That insight is… disarming. And deserving of the truth.
I nod at the table. ‘By cooking for people who care. By you eating my food and moaning.’ I grin, teasing. ‘And eating some more until you almost throw up. Like last night.’
She almost smiles. ‘I’ll make up for it.’ She takes a bite of bread – thick crust, soft crumb – and chews slowly. I watch crumbs drift from her mouth, the way her lips curve around the taste.
When she swallows, she exhales. ‘This is… peaceful.’
I nod, heart aching. ‘It should be. There’s been nothing but peace here.’ Unlike at Fallbrook and the carnage your grandfather visited on my family last year.
She reads my unspoken words and lowers her gaze, stirring her coffee.
Silence throbs around us. ‘When did you start?’ I ask.
Her eyes dart to mine and her body goes rigid. After a full minute, she relaxes. ‘Too young. Fourteen.’
Fuck. Even I didn’t start until I was fifteen. ‘Let me guess, you accidentally exhibited a skill?’
I know I’ve hit the bullseye when her eyes widen. ‘Yes.’
My smile feels starched. ‘It’s always a skill they notice first. They close their eyes to everything but the talent. Like we were made for the blade. Like that’s all we’re good for.’
She swallows, and her nostrils quiver delicately. ‘I was told everything in my life is about survival. The famigghia’s above all else. It was my duty to ensure I survive and thrive so we all could. So I best death. But I never… rest.’
Fuck, I don’t know how to process knowing she didn’t choose this path, didn’t embrace it as wholeheartedly as I did.
Hell, from what I’m beginning to piece together, she’s near-killed herself to mould her soft soul to this, rather than discard it entirely to make room for the darkness. The way I have.
Before I can talk myself out of further insanity, I rise, skirt the chair and crouch next to her. I squeeze her waist. ‘Then rest now.’
She tilts her head, searching my eyes. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘I’ll show you.’ I brush a kiss to her temple, then lead her hand to the table where I’ve set a small dish of lardo, thinly sliced and translucent. ‘Taste this.’
I guide a slice onto her tongue. She hesitates, then closes her eyes. The fat melts like silk. I watch her shoulders unfurl. ‘I never knew fat could taste… so freeing.’ After a moment, she sets the dish down, leaning into me. ‘I’m not sure I deserve this.’
I draw her close. ‘You deserve to live beyond the blade.’
She presses her face into my chest. ‘Show me how.’
Day Two – Late Afternoon
We wander the villa’s grounds, terraced gardens of lavender and rosemary. The sun is a molten orb, casting long shadows. I show her where my mother planted grapevines – roots nearly fifty years old. She kneels, touches the gnarled trunk.
Then she looks up, a look in her eyes I can’t decipher. ‘I know who you are. What you are. And yet I can’t reconcile it with… everything?’
I slide my arm around her shoulders. ‘Stop fucking overthinking, Sofiya. The shitshow will come soon enough.’
Her head turns to rest on my shoulder. She hesitates, then lifts her face. ‘Come inside. I want… something.’
I try to summon a smirk but all I achieve is an eager nod.
We ascend the curving stone steps to the kitchen, the space still warm from yesterday’s cooking.
She moves to the cutting board and pulls fresh peaches from a basket.
She sinks her teeth into the ripe fruit, juice dripping down her chin.
I chuckle, then close the gap, kissing the sweet slick from her lips and chin.
She pushes me gently, neck flushed. ‘Now that is dessert.’
I grin, stepping back, tearing off my shirt, revealing scars and muscles honed by war. She watches, heat building.
‘When you’re ready,’ I murmur, ‘I’ll take you to bed.’
She swallows. ‘I’m ready.’
Day Three – Morning
A hush falls over the villa. The barometer of conflict in my chest ticks down just enough to let peaceful nerves pulse. I’m chopping garlic for bruschetta – Thursday’s breakfast, as her morning-after request. When I glance over, I find Sofiya in the doorway, hair loose around her shoulders.
She cups her hands around a mug of coffee. ‘I brought you a refuel.’
I set the knife aside, step forward, and take the mug, breath filling with the earthiness of espresso and cream. ‘Grazie.’
She props a hip against the counter, nods towards the board. ‘Looks like I’ll be tasting again.’
I lean in, brushing a kiss to her temple. ‘Taste all you want.’
She dips a cherry tomato – tiny and sun-warmed – into salt, then brings it to my lips. I taste it, and the sharp salt and sweet burst of flavour spread warmth through me. ‘Perfect,’ I murmur.
She smiles, but it wavers. ‘I’m scared.’
I step back, reach for her hand. ‘Of what?’
She lowers her head. ‘Of forgetting why we’re here.’
I lift her chin, lock eyes, ignoring the shifting sands beneath my own feet. ‘Then don’t look ahead. Focus on what’s in front of us.’ I trace a fingertip along her jaw. ‘If Bonafacio still hides, we’ll find him. But not at the expense of this – whatever this is between us.’
Her shoulders relax. ‘I think I’m getting addicted to you.’
A flicker of disbelief punches me – horses given wings, bullets turned to butterflies. ‘I’d say you’re insane but…’ I shrug. My insides roil from how hard I want to reach for that.
She winks, impish. ‘But you’re the expert and you don’t think this is insanity? Doesn’t mean it’s not true.’
I cup her face, thumb brushing over her smooth cheek. ‘Don’t tempt me with it, bedda. I will take and take and take.’
She hums – a purr that ripples through my chest. ‘Maybe I want you to.’
She steps close, pressing her lips to mine, brief and tender, proof that even in a world built on blood, there can be sweetness.
I hold her there, and for a moment, my mother’s kitchen, my mother’s apron, the taste of home, all merge into a single insane prayer.
Two Days Later – Dusk
We’ve spent two days in this delicate interlude with meals shared over candles, filthy jokes in the corridors, moments of calm silence beneath the arbour as cicadas thrummed. But inevitably, pressure and time bears the fuck down, marching to the drum of its own reckoning.
I turn from the sink with water dripping from my hands. She’s outside, leaning on the railing staring at the orange and violet sky.
I join her and wrap an arm around her waist, this woman I’ve fucked and gloried in but might have to kill when this clusterfuck is done.
I’ve never felt the slightest inclination to carve a place in my black soul for those who’ve met their deaths at my hand.
But for her I might just make an exception.
An exception to death or to life?
I ignore the whispered question. Ignore the jagged path it attempts to carve inside me.
‘Sofiya.’ Her name catches on my lips – an invocation. A warning to myself not to stray from what needs to be done.
She leans back against me, voice hushed. ‘I know. Tomorrow, we go back to the hunt.’
‘We’ve had two extra days.’ I press a kiss to her temple.
She lifts her face, eyes haunting in lantern light. ‘Peace till dawn?’
I tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, allowing… hell, disarmed in the face of her singular temptation. ‘Sì. Then it’s war, unless…’ I trail off, searching her gaze. Fuck. Am I really doing this?
‘Unless what?’
I pull her close, feeling the beat of her heart against my chest. ‘Unless we keep doing this, beyond six races, beyond blood. Maybe for the season.’ I don’t frame it in a question because I’m not sure I can stand the wrong answer. A statement she can take or leave.
Her shoulders tremble. ‘I don’t know how I can—’
‘Then leave it with me.’ I summon a wink, which feels heavier than normal. Hell, every single fucking thing feels different with her. ‘I’m training you in other things. Why not this too, eh?’ I press my forehead to hers.
Her gaze searches mine. ‘Don’t let this go to your head, but I’m a little terrified.’
I cradle her face. ‘I’m not.’ Lie. I am. A little. Of what Cesare will say. What Orazio will do. But most unsettlingly, why that organ in my chest seems to be fucking elated with this new plot twist. ‘And that’s all that should fucking count.’
She closes her eyes, and I lean in for a kiss that’s equal parts promise and frenzied. Rain begins to patter against the roof, and we stand wrapped in one another, clinging to this fragile peace that probably won’t have a hope against the mighty vinnitta machine.
Soon enough, we’ll choose sides again.
But tonight, there is only us. This shaky bliss, our blood-soaked history, and the stubborn glimmer of hope that two broken souls might find a way to create something beautiful.
Something even Mama would’ve loved.